I would tend to agree with the author here. I can't see Bitcoin ever emerging as something legal and useful to the average person.
>Bitcoin enthusiasts disagree, claiming illicit activity is practically non-existent. Instead, they preach decentralization, trustlessness and smart contracts - none of which are benefits but merely features.
Bitcoin enthusiasts preach an awful lot of things, particularly preaching about how others should adopt Bitcoin as a currency while they themselves sit on their stacks of it hoping to see its price rise and cash in.
Indeed, it is these Bitcoin "enthusiasts", or more accurately lay speculators, that are likely one of Bitcoin's largest issue. They've turned what was designed to be a currency into an investment/speculation instrument and it's not transcending beyond that because of it, with the exception of people using it for illegal purposes.
So you've two sides to Bitcoin in reality - speculators praying other people adopt it as a currency and those using it for nefarious purposes - both of which are off-putting to any normal person who'd consider using Bitcoin for purchases.
I see no real future for Bitcoin personally. Gambling, perhaps, but even Bitcoin poker at the moment is mainly already skilled, dedicated players using Bitcoin Poker to play since they can't in the US, and that's not going to attract many casual players in itself to create a sustainable ecosystem, nevermind the Bitcoin barriers to getting on to the site in the first place.
So you've two sides to Bitcoin in reality - speculators praying other people adopt it as a currency and those using it for nefarious purposes - both of which are off-putting to any normal person who'd consider using Bitcoin for purchases.
If every Satoshi could be tracked along the blockchain for tax purposes I suspect the technology would become the de facto standard currency in the US and especially France. ;-)
> Tax evasion and escaping capital controls are also possible with Bitcoin
Bitcoin is about as useful as lucky sunglasses for illegal transactions. Just ask Ross William Ulbricht.
I don't engage in illegal transactions. But if I did, I wouldn't use a mechanism that leaves a permanent, publicly available record just waiting to be de-anonymized.
> Bitcoin is powerful because it allows people to circumvent regulations, as it does not rely on the traditional banking system.
False. Regulations do not limit themselves to the traditional banking system. Bitcoin is about as useful as lucky sunglasses for avoiding regulation. Sure you can get away with it a few times,....
Uhhhh, you haven't heard of mixing? I mean, not Blockchain.info mixing, that one doesn't work. But there's even a push for CoinJoin (by gmaxwell, one of the maintainers of the Bitcoin source code).
Also, regulation is about as useful as enforcement. If you ain't in the US, enforcement is pretty weak and therefore you can get away with it MANY times.
Ross William Ulbricht wasn't caught because of Bitcoin. I read the FBI report and there was absolutely no mention of the blockchain if I recall correctly.
Bitcoin has many benefits for the average man, provided it is in wide use. Currently it isn't, so the advantages are not yet substantive.
For one thing, the government doesn't control the inflation of bitcoin like it does with dollars. The fed aims for ~2.5-3% "inflation" every year, however this is inflation beyond the massive deflation that occurs year over year due to technology and efficiency increases... The supercomputer that cost millions in 1970 dollars cost you a couple hundred (and fits in your pocket to boot.) The inflated 1970's million USD is gigantic in today's dollars, but only because of the inflation created by the fed because they believe it is the only way to keep the fiat money system working. If people realized the deflationary power by simply not spending, the consumer driven economy would crash and burn quickly.
What bitcoin offers is an escape from that inflationary cycle. If it's use spreads, it will allow people to protect their money in banks (although, they will be more like safety deposit boxes.) Banks can still offer loans, but it will be at a real rate in the market place. Fractional reserve banking will be a thing of the past. Federal (debt-backed) subsidies will no longer apply.
The inflationary spiral that keeps reducing wealth for anyone who wants to save without participating in the inflated stock market will end.
I see bitcoin as the cure to the woes of today. We have a real problem with the environment, and I believe much of it would be better if the money supply were not manipulated to support the consumer-driven economy. We would still have smart phones, but we probably wouldn't have throw away cases that we changed out with every outfit..
"the government doesn't control the inflation of bitcoin like it does with dollars"--
This is exactly the thing about Bitcoin that concerns me most; it has economic implications baked into its design and operation, but We, the People, have no voice in deciding those implications.
What if We, the People, want to change the inflationary/deflationary properties of the money? If we're on bitcoin, someone else made that choice for you, and you have no recourse.
I'm not at all comfortable giving away that kind of agency; after such a long arc toward greater democracy, it's hard to see bitcoin as anything but a substantial step away from democratic governance.
By your argument the cost of food/goods are going up because we're becoming less efficient at producing it. This is not how inflation works, and that's not how deflation works.
There really is no use for it. Banks have made transactions dirt simple and convenient (especially those outside the US), as well as safe.
The only real use for Bitcoin is for anonymous, difficult to trace transactions (ie. black markets), and speculation.
With my regular bank account and credit card, I can buy products from China to NA to Europe and just about anywhere, can change my funds into a myriad of currencies, and since I have an investment account, can also invest in 19(? have to check with my broker) different countries' stock markets.
The problems Bitcoin claims to be trying to solve were already solved by the banks a while back. Plus banks will insure a fairly large amount of cash (more than most of us will have at any given time).
> The problems Bitcoin claims to be trying to solve were already solved by the banks a while back.
Bitcoin (according to its website) claims to provide instant P2P transactions and very low processing fees. International bank transactions take days or weeks and have very high fees.
But even more importantly, bitcoins do not require a bank account. All it requires is internet or text messaging access. This is very important for the developing world where many people do not have bank accounts.
Bitcoin allows for anyone with internet or even text-messaging access to hold, receive and send money. To me, this seems revolutionary. I don't know how the author can ignore this.
There are things that the third world already uses for this purpose, such as M-Pesa. Money through SMS is already in wide use, for millions, right now. How can I send someone bitcoin through text messaging? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa
I suspect that the half of the word's population that is unable to get a bank account has a sizable overlap with the fraction that doesn't have internet or even text-messaging access.
I'm a big fan of both Sidney and Scott and the great work they did building Helloblock, one of the better Bitcoin API providers. It's a shame that they couldn't find a market for their product.
What's a bigger shame is that they've both written articles disparaging Bitcoin technology now that they've decided to move on to other challenges.
We have a brand new data storage technology that allows for equal access read and write privileges on data that is permanent and shared equally across all nodes. It acts as a decentralized single point-of-truth. There has never been anything like this.
A simple ledger that operates as a type of currency is most basic thing that can be built.
Blockchain tech will disrupt almost every part of our industry. We won't need centralized identity providers like Facebook. We can start to treat digital media as property and build up a viable economic system. We can actually account for people's data use and the value of their contributions instead of this blind air gap between advertising and operation costs. We can create and transfer digital assets that represent all sorts of things.
Writers, photographers, musicians and anyone else who makes the content that fuels the advertising engines of Silicon Valley are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with how they publish work on the Internet. Putting something on a web page isn't publishing. Posting something on Facebook or Twitter isn't publishing. The act of publishing needs to be public and it needs to be permanent. Can you reliably quote from a blog or a tweet? No, you can't, because the content could change. You can reliably quote from the second printing of a physical text because it would be almost impossible for someone to go through and change every copy.
All of this on a unified platform that isn't controlled by anyone meaning there's no danger of a private entity limiting access to APIs and destroying the hard work of developers, which Twitter has been doing for years.
I really hate to call them out because they've been very nice and incredibly helpful over the last year, but guys, come on, there's no need to burn bridges. Just because you can't see the possibilities doesn't mean that they aren't there.
I don't understand why we even need to discuss the usefulness of Bitcoin beyond the fact that it's decentralized. Its decentralized nature, alone, is its most important attribute. Bitcoin cannot be stopped. Period.
As long as multiple people can run a program on a set of computers that can connect to each other, Bitcoin can exist. If you want to receive it anonymously, you can perform services anonymously and take payment in Bitcoin. After that, yes your transactions are on the blockchain, but if nobody knows you provided the services to receive the original Bitcoin, then they cannot trace your subsequent transactions back to you without relying on outside variables.
Yes, the regulatory environment and legal status of Bitcoin will affect its adoption as a mainstream currency. If large online merchants begin accepting it, and the price stabilizes to encourage spending, we will naturally see Bitcoin emerge as a useful payment platform. However, neither regulation nor legal status has any impact on the resiliency of the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin is decentralized and mathematical. It cannot be stopped or regulated with any real promise of enforcement.
Bitcoin, by its very nature, is here to stay. Either we can adopt it into the mainstream and build tooling around it to make criminal activity inadvisable, or we can regulate it, discourage innovation, and let the criminals take over the network. Either way, the network remains. Bitcoin is decentralized! It only requires software and network connections.
> Its decentralized nature, alone, is its most important attribute. Bitcoin cannot be stopped. Period.
It's just as decentralized as tulip bulbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania), and Bitcoin will be "stopped" when a) it is illegal to transmit or receive a blockchain (unlikely), or b) when people realize the only value Bitcoin has is in the belief that Bitcoin has value.
All it takes for Bitcoin to be worthless is the belief that Bitcoin is worthless. Therefore, if you hold any Bitcoin, you are incentivized to be a Bitcoin evangelist. Bitcoin isn't a currency, it's a religion; you need to create "converts" to make your investment of time and belief worthwhile.
And a way to reliably account for who owns what, with no central authority.
As a currency, it has the problem that there's no natural demand for it. Nobody needs it to pay their taxes, and it's not widespread enough to be worth having for the common person. Naturally this could change, but until then you've got a game theory problem.
The protocol side is what makes it interesting. The protocol is basically a way for us to collectively scribble on a giant wall that grows every 10 minutes. And that wall cannot be changed, thanks to the clever incentive system that makes the primary use to account for who owns which bitcoins. The technology would still work if you used it to scribble love letters, but nobody would have an interest in keeping the system going.
So is this protocol useful? It very well could be. For instance, any number of currency-like things could be (and are) accounted for. You could put the whole land registry on the blockchain, and then you'd always be able to verify some person owned a parcel. You can put documents (or hashes of documents) in it and prove it existed at some time. The list goes on.
The big question is whether this protocol is economical and convenient enough to actually displace what's there already. We already have a land registry. We already have notaries.
There also needs to be some thought put in about how the infrastructure will be paid for. If the currency is useless, why do miners want to keep mining? Sure, there's the potential it won't be useless in the future, but how long can you string along an operation like that for? How do you plan if the price is so volatile it might be zero or a million in five years? Each price implies a very different level of investment.
One strategy might be a slightly different altcoin system (many, many altcoins have been invented) that tries to share the cost evenly, so no one economic actor has a special position. Another thing you could do is pass real money instead of BTCs.
To me the trick about Bitcoin is to think about it as a protocol before you think about it as a currency or a ledger. Then think about how the TCP/IP protocol have managed to move way beyond it's original purpose.
Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency might very well be a way to get around the issue we currently have where technology is moving faster than legislation. And so by using cryptotechnology we will be able to circumvent the political process but still maintain accountability.
We are still some way from that but to be critical about it's future at this point is not just unwarranted IMHO it's also counterproductive.
Just from the top of my heads here are a couple of ideas I had with regards to bitcoin/crypto:
Digital Pokemón Cards.
Basically the ability to create digital collectors items.
E-books and other digital assets that could gain value.
You could sell ebooks at a premium and allow people to re-sell them. Because the history of their ownership is recorded you could even see them gaining value if they had been owned by a celebrity.
Private but public healthcare records.
For research and usage. Store the health-records publicly as personas but allow individuals people to link it with their identity. This would help with research in completely new ways.
Voting made public but anonymous
Make it impossible to fake voting results by making the results available for everyone.
Artificial Intelligence
Using the protocol to create automated consensus models for how prioritize.
Companies without owners
Build a company with a political purpose without any owner.
It doesn't need to be 100% fool proof it just needs to be good enough for a majority of people just like everything else and I don't see anything that stands in the way of it being good enough.
Bitcoin is all about the underlying PROTOCOL, not the currency itself. Note that the currency only has value because the protocol is sound.
What is the protocol? Basically it allows you to trust a network in which you don't have to trust any participants. Think about that for a minute - THIS IS A PHENOMENAL ACHIEVEMENT.
Use cases for bitcoin? Who cares.
Use cases for the protocol? Countless. Just give it time. Its existed only for ~6 years people!
Yes, the protocol is revolutionary. I can put data into the blockchain that nobody can censor: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/4315/how-can-i-in... It would be possible to create an image service free of Instagram's tyranny via the blockchain.
Also, does anyone else find it hilarious that so many of these articles talk about bitcoin in the "now" even though it was invented yesterday in the grand scheme of things?
If you aren't gonna at least address this there is no way I'm respecting your critique sorry.
This is a miss-guided question. We can't predict the future, therefor we can't imagine the uses for new tech/thing. In fact disruptive new tech creates it's own uses. Asking what the use of Arpanet back in the day totally misses what the Internet has become.
How can you be optimistic about the future if no one thinks about it or builds for it?
This guy has obviously thought about it and listed it in the "Internet of things protocol" using the blockchain. I don't agree necessarily though because IEEE already working on something.
The conclusion ("It’s incorrect to say Bitcoin doesn’t have a use case. It does. It’s just illegal in the US.") seems strange given that there is a big section of the article on semi-illegal things - basically things that are legal but traditional financial companies don't want to touch. The article says "mostly gambling, marijuana, and porn" but I'd also add politically controversial things, like when all the payment processors decided they didn't want to handle donations to Wikileaks after the US government asked them to make that change. These are real and legal use cases.
> when all the payment processors decided they didn't want to handle donations to Wikileaks after the US government asked them to make that change.
On the face of it, this seems like the one legal use of Bitcoin, to circumvent situations where the government uses influence to block certain economic activity through words (a request to payment processors) instead of the threat of force (new laws).
However, the only reason that Bitcoin has any value to Wikileaks is because it can be exchanged for dollars to fund Wikileaks activity, and the only reason Bitcoin can be exchanged for dollars is because it is a medium of exchange for drugs. Without the drug market, Bitcoin would have little value, making it pointless to donate to Wikileaks.
This is a broad generalization that it's used for illegal purposes.
My (very legal) business accepts Bitcoin. I don't have many customers using that form of payment, but chances are I may not have them if I didn't accept it.
I don't really care what form of payment you want to use.
Bitcoin's killer app is its function as a store of value. It's hard to see this when there are plenty of things that are storing value better at the moment, like traditional currencies and assets. But I don't think that will hold indefinitely (especially given our asset bubble), and that will lead people to look for ledgers with predictable supply, like gold and Bitcoin.
Spot on. Used with its full potential (multi-sig, time-lock, etc), and due to its fixed supply, bitcoin offers the most secure (but not the least volatile) way to store units of account. It provides the by far the most protection against malicious actors who would attempt to wrest control from the asset holder. How much this actually matters to most people (and thus its affect on the price of BTC) is an open question.
I think bitcoin will be incredibly useful in the digital goods economy. Global digital marketplaces need payment solutions that transcend nationalities. If you create an album of music and want to sell digital copies online you should be able to accept payments from customers anywhere in the world using any currency. Bitcoin allows that to happen. If you want to create a video content channel and let people pay a monthly subscription there should not be any type of restriction because of what country the viewer lives in. All of these borders and constraints are artificial and unnecessary in a digital economy. If you want to create a digital service that operates entirely on the internet, why should you be restricted to using a subset of currencies? Bitcoin can be the transaction layer that makes all the human constraints irrelevant. Digital goods also offer essentially no cost of replication so the only real limitation on the size of the digital economy is the number of agents participating in it, which increases daily. The tools needed to create and consume digital products are becoming cheaper every year and more people are gaining access to them globally. IMO the future of the world economy is going to be increasingly digital, and increasingly created by independent producers. Games, books, education, movies, short format shows, PC and mobile applications, web services, photography, art, comics, all will be available to anyone in the world at very low cost and with no necessity for restriction. As I see it the only thing holding back this digital revolution is that consumers are largely ignorant as to it's existence and continue to support antiquated development and delivery systems. I do not think that the rising young generations have this impediment in their habits. What really seems to be missing is a global system for independent content discovery. I'd like to see a universal amazon style digital product aggregation and distribution system that only uses digital currency. The store would provide discovery and distribution (maybe digital currency exchange as well) to a global audience for a transaction fee that beats traditional payment methods. A wiki style product information page that allows users to provide additional product details and translations for localization would be interesting to see (while difficult to moderate).
tl;dr with bitcoin anyone in the world can create a digital product with nearly zero replication or distribution costs and sell it to anyone else in the world basically instantly. That infrastructure exists today but is underutilized.
* Bitcoin is excellent as a charity funding mechanism. Often I may wish to give to a charity, but don't want to give out my credit card number. I give up my tax credit, but for small handouts that's quite alright.
* Micropayments. There is simply no other infrastructure that does this as well as Bitcoin does, because processing fees dominate.
If you do the math, bitcoin is easily the most expensive currency to transact in, and least economically efficient currency relative to legitimate economic activity generated.
Surely people here are not so short sited that they actually think these 'not useful' cases are really not useful or that these are the only use cases.
Right now you could travel around Thailand and bring only your phone and passport. There is a service that allows you to give btc and get a code that can be used at any ATM of a major bank and get cash. You can cut down the 8% spread of changing money at the airport to 1/3rd of that at least. That is something you can do right this second.
Not only that but paying for something online is fantastic. No excessive information, no transactions cancelled because of a companies' opaque fraud protection system, no chance of your card number being stolen, no need to generate a temporary card number, no need to worry about your bank's opaque fraud protection...
Seriously, if you think bitcoin isn't useful, try using it.
With your Thailand example, the author made the point that it's actually cheaper through P2P model (like Hawala) without the need to eat the exchange spread/fees by changing BTC.
And yeah, fraud is still a huge problem for e-commerce, but how does Bitcoin solve that? As stated in the article, it just pushes more responsibility to the user. Multi-sig doesn't solve that either, you still need a 3rd party escrow provider, who will charge a fee.
I just wrote a post at lunch about this. Right now for most people Bitcoin is the only way to leave your wallet at home and pay for things with your mobile phone.
1. More people have Applepay than have a Bitcoin wallet
2. More stores and restaurants accept Applepay than Bitcoin
12.2M people had used Applepay at least once between launch and the end of February -- Some significant portion more than once. There were only 12.263M bitcoin transactions in the same time period -- many of which were basically dust / micro-transactions of a few pennies worth of BTC.
There are only 1.5M bitcoin addresses with more than $2.50 in them.. 97% of addresses have less than .001 bitcoin.
[+] [-] borgia|11 years ago|reply
>Bitcoin enthusiasts disagree, claiming illicit activity is practically non-existent. Instead, they preach decentralization, trustlessness and smart contracts - none of which are benefits but merely features.
Bitcoin enthusiasts preach an awful lot of things, particularly preaching about how others should adopt Bitcoin as a currency while they themselves sit on their stacks of it hoping to see its price rise and cash in.
Indeed, it is these Bitcoin "enthusiasts", or more accurately lay speculators, that are likely one of Bitcoin's largest issue. They've turned what was designed to be a currency into an investment/speculation instrument and it's not transcending beyond that because of it, with the exception of people using it for illegal purposes.
So you've two sides to Bitcoin in reality - speculators praying other people adopt it as a currency and those using it for nefarious purposes - both of which are off-putting to any normal person who'd consider using Bitcoin for purchases.
I see no real future for Bitcoin personally. Gambling, perhaps, but even Bitcoin poker at the moment is mainly already skilled, dedicated players using Bitcoin Poker to play since they can't in the US, and that's not going to attract many casual players in itself to create a sustainable ecosystem, nevermind the Bitcoin barriers to getting on to the site in the first place.
[+] [-] Goronmon|11 years ago|reply
Don't forget the anarchists.
[+] [-] malka|11 years ago|reply
However, the features it has should be a huge source of inspiration for the banking system imo.
[+] [-] SCAQTony|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulsutter|11 years ago|reply
> Tax evasion and escaping capital controls are also possible with Bitcoin
Bitcoin is about as useful as lucky sunglasses for illegal transactions. Just ask Ross William Ulbricht.
I don't engage in illegal transactions. But if I did, I wouldn't use a mechanism that leaves a permanent, publicly available record just waiting to be de-anonymized.
> Bitcoin is powerful because it allows people to circumvent regulations, as it does not rely on the traditional banking system.
False. Regulations do not limit themselves to the traditional banking system. Bitcoin is about as useful as lucky sunglasses for avoiding regulation. Sure you can get away with it a few times,....
[+] [-] reganrob|11 years ago|reply
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0
Also, regulation is about as useful as enforcement. If you ain't in the US, enforcement is pretty weak and therefore you can get away with it MANY times.
[+] [-] olalonde|11 years ago|reply
Ross William Ulbricht wasn't caught because of Bitcoin. I read the FBI report and there was absolutely no mention of the blockchain if I recall correctly.
[+] [-] chisleu|11 years ago|reply
For one thing, the government doesn't control the inflation of bitcoin like it does with dollars. The fed aims for ~2.5-3% "inflation" every year, however this is inflation beyond the massive deflation that occurs year over year due to technology and efficiency increases... The supercomputer that cost millions in 1970 dollars cost you a couple hundred (and fits in your pocket to boot.) The inflated 1970's million USD is gigantic in today's dollars, but only because of the inflation created by the fed because they believe it is the only way to keep the fiat money system working. If people realized the deflationary power by simply not spending, the consumer driven economy would crash and burn quickly.
What bitcoin offers is an escape from that inflationary cycle. If it's use spreads, it will allow people to protect their money in banks (although, they will be more like safety deposit boxes.) Banks can still offer loans, but it will be at a real rate in the market place. Fractional reserve banking will be a thing of the past. Federal (debt-backed) subsidies will no longer apply.
The inflationary spiral that keeps reducing wealth for anyone who wants to save without participating in the inflated stock market will end.
I see bitcoin as the cure to the woes of today. We have a real problem with the environment, and I believe much of it would be better if the money supply were not manipulated to support the consumer-driven economy. We would still have smart phones, but we probably wouldn't have throw away cases that we changed out with every outfit..
[+] [-] Frondo|11 years ago|reply
This is exactly the thing about Bitcoin that concerns me most; it has economic implications baked into its design and operation, but We, the People, have no voice in deciding those implications.
What if We, the People, want to change the inflationary/deflationary properties of the money? If we're on bitcoin, someone else made that choice for you, and you have no recourse.
I'm not at all comfortable giving away that kind of agency; after such a long arc toward greater democracy, it's hard to see bitcoin as anything but a substantial step away from democratic governance.
[+] [-] shawnb576|11 years ago|reply
Maybe go bone up on your basic economics?
[+] [-] Mikeb85|11 years ago|reply
The only real use for Bitcoin is for anonymous, difficult to trace transactions (ie. black markets), and speculation.
With my regular bank account and credit card, I can buy products from China to NA to Europe and just about anywhere, can change my funds into a myriad of currencies, and since I have an investment account, can also invest in 19(? have to check with my broker) different countries' stock markets.
The problems Bitcoin claims to be trying to solve were already solved by the banks a while back. Plus banks will insure a fairly large amount of cash (more than most of us will have at any given time).
[+] [-] cporios|11 years ago|reply
Bitcoin (according to its website) claims to provide instant P2P transactions and very low processing fees. International bank transactions take days or weeks and have very high fees.
But even more importantly, bitcoins do not require a bank account. All it requires is internet or text messaging access. This is very important for the developing world where many people do not have bank accounts.
[+] [-] cporios|11 years ago|reply
Bitcoin allows for anyone with internet or even text-messaging access to hold, receive and send money. To me, this seems revolutionary. I don't know how the author can ignore this.
[+] [-] rthomas6|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] williamcotton|11 years ago|reply
What's a bigger shame is that they've both written articles disparaging Bitcoin technology now that they've decided to move on to other challenges.
We have a brand new data storage technology that allows for equal access read and write privileges on data that is permanent and shared equally across all nodes. It acts as a decentralized single point-of-truth. There has never been anything like this.
A simple ledger that operates as a type of currency is most basic thing that can be built.
Blockchain tech will disrupt almost every part of our industry. We won't need centralized identity providers like Facebook. We can start to treat digital media as property and build up a viable economic system. We can actually account for people's data use and the value of their contributions instead of this blind air gap between advertising and operation costs. We can create and transfer digital assets that represent all sorts of things.
Writers, photographers, musicians and anyone else who makes the content that fuels the advertising engines of Silicon Valley are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with how they publish work on the Internet. Putting something on a web page isn't publishing. Posting something on Facebook or Twitter isn't publishing. The act of publishing needs to be public and it needs to be permanent. Can you reliably quote from a blog or a tweet? No, you can't, because the content could change. You can reliably quote from the second printing of a physical text because it would be almost impossible for someone to go through and change every copy.
All of this on a unified platform that isn't controlled by anyone meaning there's no danger of a private entity limiting access to APIs and destroying the hard work of developers, which Twitter has been doing for years.
I really hate to call them out because they've been very nice and incredibly helpful over the last year, but guys, come on, there's no need to burn bridges. Just because you can't see the possibilities doesn't mean that they aren't there.
[+] [-] chatmasta|11 years ago|reply
As long as multiple people can run a program on a set of computers that can connect to each other, Bitcoin can exist. If you want to receive it anonymously, you can perform services anonymously and take payment in Bitcoin. After that, yes your transactions are on the blockchain, but if nobody knows you provided the services to receive the original Bitcoin, then they cannot trace your subsequent transactions back to you without relying on outside variables.
Yes, the regulatory environment and legal status of Bitcoin will affect its adoption as a mainstream currency. If large online merchants begin accepting it, and the price stabilizes to encourage spending, we will naturally see Bitcoin emerge as a useful payment platform. However, neither regulation nor legal status has any impact on the resiliency of the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin is decentralized and mathematical. It cannot be stopped or regulated with any real promise of enforcement.
Bitcoin, by its very nature, is here to stay. Either we can adopt it into the mainstream and build tooling around it to make criminal activity inadvisable, or we can regulate it, discourage innovation, and let the criminals take over the network. Either way, the network remains. Bitcoin is decentralized! It only requires software and network connections.
[+] [-] random28345|11 years ago|reply
It's just as decentralized as tulip bulbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania), and Bitcoin will be "stopped" when a) it is illegal to transmit or receive a blockchain (unlikely), or b) when people realize the only value Bitcoin has is in the belief that Bitcoin has value.
All it takes for Bitcoin to be worthless is the belief that Bitcoin is worthless. Therefore, if you hold any Bitcoin, you are incentivized to be a Bitcoin evangelist. Bitcoin isn't a currency, it's a religion; you need to create "converts" to make your investment of time and belief worthwhile.
[+] [-] lordnacho|11 years ago|reply
A currency.
And a way to reliably account for who owns what, with no central authority.
As a currency, it has the problem that there's no natural demand for it. Nobody needs it to pay their taxes, and it's not widespread enough to be worth having for the common person. Naturally this could change, but until then you've got a game theory problem.
The protocol side is what makes it interesting. The protocol is basically a way for us to collectively scribble on a giant wall that grows every 10 minutes. And that wall cannot be changed, thanks to the clever incentive system that makes the primary use to account for who owns which bitcoins. The technology would still work if you used it to scribble love letters, but nobody would have an interest in keeping the system going.
So is this protocol useful? It very well could be. For instance, any number of currency-like things could be (and are) accounted for. You could put the whole land registry on the blockchain, and then you'd always be able to verify some person owned a parcel. You can put documents (or hashes of documents) in it and prove it existed at some time. The list goes on.
The big question is whether this protocol is economical and convenient enough to actually displace what's there already. We already have a land registry. We already have notaries.
There also needs to be some thought put in about how the infrastructure will be paid for. If the currency is useless, why do miners want to keep mining? Sure, there's the potential it won't be useless in the future, but how long can you string along an operation like that for? How do you plan if the price is so volatile it might be zero or a million in five years? Each price implies a very different level of investment.
One strategy might be a slightly different altcoin system (many, many altcoins have been invented) that tries to share the cost evenly, so no one economic actor has a special position. Another thing you could do is pass real money instead of BTCs.
But I think the protocol core is here to stay.
[+] [-] ThomPete|11 years ago|reply
Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency might very well be a way to get around the issue we currently have where technology is moving faster than legislation. And so by using cryptotechnology we will be able to circumvent the political process but still maintain accountability.
We are still some way from that but to be critical about it's future at this point is not just unwarranted IMHO it's also counterproductive.
Just from the top of my heads here are a couple of ideas I had with regards to bitcoin/crypto:
Digital Pokemón Cards. Basically the ability to create digital collectors items.
E-books and other digital assets that could gain value. You could sell ebooks at a premium and allow people to re-sell them. Because the history of their ownership is recorded you could even see them gaining value if they had been owned by a celebrity.
Private but public healthcare records. For research and usage. Store the health-records publicly as personas but allow individuals people to link it with their identity. This would help with research in completely new ways.
Voting made public but anonymous Make it impossible to fake voting results by making the results available for everyone.
Artificial Intelligence Using the protocol to create automated consensus models for how prioritize.
Companies without owners Build a company with a political purpose without any owner.
It doesn't need to be 100% fool proof it just needs to be good enough for a majority of people just like everything else and I don't see anything that stands in the way of it being good enough.
[+] [-] spectrum1234|11 years ago|reply
What is the protocol? Basically it allows you to trust a network in which you don't have to trust any participants. Think about that for a minute - THIS IS A PHENOMENAL ACHIEVEMENT.
Use cases for bitcoin? Who cares. Use cases for the protocol? Countless. Just give it time. Its existed only for ~6 years people!
[+] [-] barce|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spectrum1234|11 years ago|reply
If you aren't gonna at least address this there is no way I'm respecting your critique sorry.
[+] [-] njharman|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reganrob|11 years ago|reply
This guy has obviously thought about it and listed it in the "Internet of things protocol" using the blockchain. I don't agree necessarily though because IEEE already working on something.
[+] [-] streptomycin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] random28345|11 years ago|reply
On the face of it, this seems like the one legal use of Bitcoin, to circumvent situations where the government uses influence to block certain economic activity through words (a request to payment processors) instead of the threat of force (new laws).
However, the only reason that Bitcoin has any value to Wikileaks is because it can be exchanged for dollars to fund Wikileaks activity, and the only reason Bitcoin can be exchanged for dollars is because it is a medium of exchange for drugs. Without the drug market, Bitcoin would have little value, making it pointless to donate to Wikileaks.
[+] [-] latchkey|11 years ago|reply
Applications: identification / existence, copyright, trademark, notary, escrow and proof of service.
[+] [-] mmuro|11 years ago|reply
My (very legal) business accepts Bitcoin. I don't have many customers using that form of payment, but chances are I may not have them if I didn't accept it.
I don't really care what form of payment you want to use.
[+] [-] natrius|11 years ago|reply
Then again, maybe I'm crazy.
[+] [-] tptacek|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwaltrip|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] canvia|11 years ago|reply
tl;dr with bitcoin anyone in the world can create a digital product with nearly zero replication or distribution costs and sell it to anyone else in the world basically instantly. That infrastructure exists today but is underutilized.
[+] [-] bdamm|11 years ago|reply
* Bitcoin is excellent as a charity funding mechanism. Often I may wish to give to a charity, but don't want to give out my credit card number. I give up my tax credit, but for small handouts that's quite alright.
* Micropayments. There is simply no other infrastructure that does this as well as Bitcoin does, because processing fees dominate.
[+] [-] random28345|11 years ago|reply
You mean aside from currency conversion fees, the transaction fees (https://blockchain.info/charts/transaction-fees) and the massive $6,000 to $25,000 block reward?
If you do the math, bitcoin is easily the most expensive currency to transact in, and least economically efficient currency relative to legitimate economic activity generated.
[+] [-] dragontamer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CyberDildonics|11 years ago|reply
Right now you could travel around Thailand and bring only your phone and passport. There is a service that allows you to give btc and get a code that can be used at any ATM of a major bank and get cash. You can cut down the 8% spread of changing money at the airport to 1/3rd of that at least. That is something you can do right this second.
Not only that but paying for something online is fantastic. No excessive information, no transactions cancelled because of a companies' opaque fraud protection system, no chance of your card number being stolen, no need to generate a temporary card number, no need to worry about your bank's opaque fraud protection...
Seriously, if you think bitcoin isn't useful, try using it.
[+] [-] ostikk|11 years ago|reply
And yeah, fraud is still a huge problem for e-commerce, but how does Bitcoin solve that? As stated in the article, it just pushes more responsibility to the user. Multi-sig doesn't solve that either, you still need a 3rd party escrow provider, who will charge a fee.
[+] [-] AlexMuir|11 years ago|reply
http://alexmuir.com/bitcoins-practical-use
[+] [-] mikeyouse|11 years ago|reply
1. More people have Applepay than have a Bitcoin wallet 2. More stores and restaurants accept Applepay than Bitcoin
12.2M people had used Applepay at least once between launch and the end of February -- Some significant portion more than once. There were only 12.263M bitcoin transactions in the same time period -- many of which were basically dust / micro-transactions of a few pennies worth of BTC.
There are only 1.5M bitcoin addresses with more than $2.50 in them.. 97% of addresses have less than .001 bitcoin.
[+] [-] 2drew3|11 years ago|reply
Use case for consumers: discounts on Amazon.
Use case for earners (mostly unbanked): earn Amazon gift cards as payment and convert to fiat through bitcoin.
Blog showcasing counterargument: https://medium.com/@PurseIO/10-use-cases-for-bitcoin-c6b7182...